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BlueKatz -> RE: Dragon's Files (6/27/2012 15:19:03)
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It was really dark down there, and the tunnel seemed infinity, our light orb could only light up few foots ahead. It did took us a long while to get down here with that rotten stairs (I hoped it won't slow us down on our escape) so I guessed we ought to be deep inside the mountain now. The wall was raw rock and only held by logs, this tunnel was made poorly like a mine. The Air smelled wet and filled of dirt, I could also smell some really fainted alchemist mix used to keep that tunnel from roots. Unexpectedly, I smelled none of the rotten fresh from the zombies or any sense of magic. I wondered if this could be another illusion or this place was abandoned for too long and Carandril was a lot weaker than I thought.
We didn't walk for too long but our patience was limited. We tested to see if this would be another illusion but it was not.
And then right when we thought we would feel crazy, we saw 2 paths a head.
"Oh how encouraging!" I could sense the disappointment in his tone, he must be falling down from that flashy speech. "Can you sense him?"
"I can't feel anything. He seems like a shade, earth generally absorb magic so it's hard to track him down." My direction was a lot better than most human "But I believe the right path will lead us deeper into the mountain, father away from the mansion while the other lead back to the mansion."
"What?" He asked surprisingly "So it just takes us back? What's the point of this long road then?
"It could be a big storage and it was inconvenience. We didn't walk that far away from the mansion actually, the tunnel acted like a stairs leading deeper inside the mountain."
He thought for a sec then decided "Well we ought to check the storage then, or whatever it might be. We might not be able to catch him at this rate so just check where we might not be able to go back again. "
Wow... I thought, are all human that stupid? For a second he insisted going after the most wanted man in the Dragon Order, and then later he decided to check hidden stuff instead of chasing said guy. I guessed I could never understand this "adventure" spirit.
We took the right path, it got a lot deeper and sloppier. And shortly after that I noticed something interesting.
"Hey!" I said "This is a cave, it's not a man made tunnel anymore."
"Does not seems like a natural cave to me... too many rocks." Reginald complained. There were actually a lot of rocks blocking our way, and soon we had to walk on them. "Look like an eruption or something."
We then reached on top of a solid giant rock or something, the light orb couldn't light up the darkness ahead, looked like we reached a big cave room.
"Can you see any path" Reginald said. We then heard the weak echo from his sentence. "Woo... this seems big."
We stood there for a moment then he said. "We could climb down but it's better to check everything down first. Can you create a big light ball to lighten up this whole place?"
A light ball wouldn't cost too much power - that was why I loved Light, it could be used differently at different forms and power levels. Creating a flare was complex but easy. I purified myself with Light magic and mixed it with Dragon Magic, a small ball of light flow into the darkness by my soft breath. It reached its destination, in the heart of darkness, then flashed light, covered the whole cave in light.
I wished I could always be that light... But we were stunned by the cave.
Lying on the ruin of rocks was the giant skeleton of once great dragon - Akor! It was obviously moved here, someone set him lying across the rocks - because of that, he did not look that horror, instead we all felt like he was sleeping, he still looked fearful and powerful, waiting for being awakening.
Lying all around, acting like the background, were a lot of corpses, skeletons and cages, old and new - we almost didn't realize them. They were Carandril's prisoners, dying in cages. It gave us a chill feeling, then left with sadness.
They said you can feel one man feeling my seeing his creation. Although I did not learn anything about Carandril, seeing Akor slept calmly on this faint field of death just told me who he was. He was the one who wouldn't stop for anything but his goal. He killed a lot of people, he used a lot from the other, he did what he wanted the most, and he did it for his own good, for his ambition, for his survival.
People called him selfish, I thought not.
He lacks what people called "humanity".
The biggest gift one could receive from human.
We stayed for awhile then leave. I wondered that was the true meaning of that. I wondered what was on Carandril, I wondered what did he think when we get here, I wondered who was that girl and what was that room truly for...
I hated to admit but I had the feeling that we were getting closer the the answer.
We quickly got back on track. It did not take that long before we reached a wooden door. There was blood written on it "GO BACK I WARNED YOU"
"Heh! Child play." Reginald commented. "Ready?"
"Yes." I felt a lot more confident now, after seeing the dead cave. I thought I knew it would end here, we would got what we came here for.
Reginald pushed the door side. There was he, Carandril, sitting on a simple wooden chair waiting for us. He did not look that old, he now looked calm, he had a very styles confident face, looked serious and amusing. Carandril sat still with right left crossed while smoking tobacco, his other hand held on the walking stick. I did not know if he was not as shady as he looked or he got a lot better now.
The room was rather small, it was lightened by a lantern on the table and a candle near the corner. There were more than 1 table beside the big one in the middle, they all were filled with papers and pictures. They were all about his experiments, those graphs and pictures were too disgusting to be looked at. There were also alchemist potions and tools all over the place, and some things looked like warped meats...
Carandril sat there amusingly like waiting for his guests to enjoy the view.
Breaking out of the shock, Reginald pointed his hand and said loudly: "You are under addressed by Dragon Lord Order, Carandril!"
"Well I hope you don't think I would follow that easy right?" Carandril said for the first time with his calm voice, surprisingly I felt like it was fulled of passion and life. Carandril's reply cut through Reginald 's speech "After all I was the one invited you here, why must we leave so soon..."
"Why?" Reginald bounded back "Why did you get us here? Why did you attack the town? Shouldn't you be more..."
"I'm glad your brain functions well but it would be time wasting for us both if we talk about this matter now..."
He stood up.
Reginald pointed his sword forward, I stood ready for a big fire ball. "Hold on. Then we ended this right here, right now. No more game."
"But I have to keep you entertaining while I prepare. As you can see... I am not ready yet..." He acted like he was also falling over, hanging on his walking stick, then stood up. "Don't be over confident, it's you the one who won't be able to get away. It's not that you didn't want to step back, you couldn't, I know Dragon Lord too well... you both are under my strings now."
Reginald dashed forward thrust his sword toward Carandril's chest, leering to the right to corner him. But Carandril stepped back and disappeared behind the curtains.
"What the..." Reginald angrily thrusting into the curtains, we knew what happened, he got away with a secret door. Just when we opened it, the whole room was shaken with rocks and dust. The secret way was quickly filled with rock, blocking us from getting our hand on Carandril.
But thing wasn't ended there, right after that we heard the familiar screaming tone of the undead from the tunnel. He surely wanted to entertain us.
"We must get moving!" The genius one said.
Then the door suddenly got shut and all the objects in the rooms flow widely around us. It was not that damaging, but really confusing, and the sound of the horde got closer and closer.
"What the hell!" Reginald screamed, bashing himself at the door.
"Magic! This mansion is haunted!"
"Well! There is only one way!"
He charged magic into his hand, this time it was even stronger, the magic furiously shaking his hand. Reginald hit the door with his full force, bashing it to pieces, I could even see the first skeleton get crushed apart right away.
I jumped right outside, hoping Reginald could catch up after the shock, and crushing two skeletons with my headbutt and then a powerful crush from my front legs. The skeletons ran after than zombies but they had no endurance to keep us still. Luckily none of them had any weapon.
Reginald dashed out right after that, I quickly leaded forward, knocking any other skeletons out of the way and Reginald only needed a slash to finish them off. But I wished life were always that easy, many of them packed a punch, some managed to cause few scratches and one even speared a bone through my scales, but I was lucky. Most important of all, Reginald was completely unharmed.
We only got pass one fourth of the tunnel. I was not in best shape and Reginald was exhausted. Then ahead were a sea on zombies. There must be almost a hundred throughout the whole tunnel, or so we thought, but realistically we knew we can get pass them. There couldn't be that much from that dead cave.
I charged a raw magic attack, Reginald quickly headed and blocked most of them with his blade, he was too weak to summon a shield. We were lucky, this tunnel was not that wide, Reginald cut them down one by one but many of them get passed and attacked from all side, leaving few wounds on him.
I charged enough for a blast before any of them could reach me, I roared, warning him, then release the power. The raw magic is destructive in its own way, blasting all one them, pushing them back and finally created a small hole in the thick web. I was dizzied but Reginald held me and ran as quickly as possible, passing all those zombies.
We passed half the tunnel, passing the dead cave path, unfortunately there were still some zombies and skeletons along the way and we had to battle them. There were too many of them so they were not to tough (It was harder to control many minions at once than control few individual ones) but they really slowed us down. We could still hear the horde follow us widely and getting closer. And right when we thought we put everything under control, the front line was thin enough to escape easily then 4 zombies and 2 skeletons shown up.
We were ready to crush them like we did with the rest but then something touch us: The sound of the horde went silent, few skeletons right behind us suddenly collapsed. Carandril knew he wouldn't be able to stop us by number, he knew his force wouldn't be able to keep us inside long enough. He wanted to cripple us instead. The zombies are well armed with thick armors, 1 steel and 3 leathers and two skeletons one had a giant axe and one had a long blade.
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